ALL NOVEL Chapter 185 - Training Exercise 33
These past two days, Mai Dongzi had used all her wood-based abilities to treat Wang Zhelan.
By the second evening, the night when Jiang Zixuan appeared, Wang Zhelan’s injuries had nearly healed, and she no longer needed to be carried.
In contrast, Li Nanxi’s recovery was much slower than expected. While Wang Zhelan had been carried by several of the female members of the Phantom Squad in turns, Li Nanxi had to walk on her own.
Although she had injured her hand and not her feet, the Phantom Squad had exerted all their strength to keep moving forward.
Li Nanxi, despite being a level-five ability user, wouldn’t be more physically capable than Wang Yiyi and the other level-four warriors, even without an injury.
Without medical treatment, and still pushing herself hard on the journey every day, it was a miracle her injury hadn’t worsened.
It wasn’t until Wang Zhelan’s injuries had healed that Mai Dongzi began treating Li Nanxi. Although her wood-based abilities weren’t strong enough to mend broken bones, they could accelerate the healing process, helping Li Nanxi’s bones heal faster.
Mai Dongzi, whose abilities were highly specialized, never used her wood-based powers in battle, relying on her other two abilities, which were much stronger in combat.
As a result, when treating these two girls, she would almost completely deplete her wood-based abilities without holding back.
The result of this was that every time her wood-based abilities naturally recovered, her proficiency in wood-based abilities grew significantly.
After several days, Mai Dongzi finally confirmed that her wood-based ability growth rate was nearly twice as fast as it was when she first entered the Imperial Capital University.
In fact, over the past six months, her spiritual-based abilities and martial arts proficiency had also seen some improvement, although not at the same rate as her wood-based abilities.
After Bai Zhizhi was captured and interrogated, it was revealed that the cultivation potential enhancement potion that Lucy had used was deliberately delivered to her by Bai Zhizhi.
Bai Zhizhi’s intention was to have Lucy die, but the underground market pharmacist wanted Lucy to try the new drug.
The potion was a new formula developed by the underground market pharmacist. It not only contained the ability and martial arts cultivation potential enhancement agents but also some substances that could stimulate the body’s latent potential, with extremely severe side effects.
Lucy couldn’t withstand it, and after Mai Dongzi was reborn, she realized that her cultivation speed was rapidly increasing for a long period of time.
It wasn’t until the survival live-stream game was nearing its end that this growth rate slowed down. After entering Imperial Capital University, this growth rate had slowed so much that Mai Dongzi could barely feel it.
She also knew that this growth was still ongoing, but since she focused mainly on her spiritual abilities and martial arts cultivation, she couldn’t notice the increase in her wood-based abilities.
And the growth of her wood-based abilities, which she practiced for only an hour a day, was slow, making it even harder to sense the increase.
However, this time, by frequently using her wood-based abilities and allowing them to naturally recover, she realized that over the past six months, the growth rate of her wood-based abilities had actually increased significantly.
Now, the speed at which her wood-based abilities were growing was nearly double that of when she first entered Imperial Capital University. This made Mai Dongzi suspect that her wood-based ability cultivation potential might have increased.
Ever since Zhuang Huaiya was nearly burned to a crisp by Erica’s fire-based abilities, Mai Dongzi had developed a strong desire to improve her wood-based abilities.
Now that she discovered her wood-based ability cultivation potential might have increased, which would allow her to cultivate her wood-based abilities to a higher level, Mai Dongzi was naturally very happy.
Mai Dongzi didn’t tell anyone about this matter. By the time Li Nanxi’s severed arm had finally healed, they had been walking through the desert for over ten days, and only had five days left until the training exercise would end.
Since Jiang Zixuan’s appearance, Mai Dongzi had noticed that their situation had become increasingly difficult.
They were encountering more and more mutant beasts, and their levels were rising. Although they hadn’t yet encountered any mutant beasts above level seven, the proportion of level five and six beasts in the groups they faced had been steadily increasing.
If it weren’t for Mai Dongzi’s strong presence, which encouraged the Phantom Squad to fight recklessly, and for the help of two level five enhancers, Wang Zhelan and Li Nanxi, the Phantom Squad would probably have lost half of its members by now.
However, this also meant that the Phantom Squad members were inevitably wounded, and their progress had been significantly slowed down.
Mai Dongzi’s wood-based abilities were constantly being drained and replenished.
“We encountered five waves of mutant beast attacks today, and at least two of those waves didn’t consist of desert mutant beasts,” Mai Dongzi said during the debriefing meeting.
“Does this mean we’re about to leave the desert?” Zhuang Huaiya asked, sounding somewhat pleased.
This was because Wang Zhelan’s team had only provoked the desert oasis inhabitants after entering the desert oasis, and they had been surrounded and blocked by the people from the oasis.
In order to avoid unnecessary trouble, the Phantom Squad had never entered any oasis they discovered nearby, even though they were aware of their existence.
But after Wang Zhelan and Li Nanxi joined their group, they had shared some of their water and food supplies.
The result of having two more people in their group was that the Phantom Squad’s remaining water supply was dwindling. They estimated it would only last about three more days.
Mai Dongzi glanced at Zhuang Huaiya with some dissatisfaction and said, “Although the map only provides an approximate area for the desert terrain, can’t you judge our location based on the direction we’ve been moving?”
“We should be crossing the western side of the entire desert, and it’s the largest crossing path,” Wang Zhelan said.
With both leaders speaking so clearly, Zhuang Huaiya naturally understood. He calculated mentally for a moment, then gave a wry smile and said, “So, by our current pace, we’ll still need at least seven more days to reach the edge of the desert.”
“Our training coordinates are at the desert’s edge. Do you know what that means?” Mai Dongzi asked.
The Phantom Squad members were silent, wearing faces that showed a lack of hope. Didn’t it go without saying? This meant they would have to complete seven days of travel in just five days.
Under the conditions of limited supplies, forcing them to march faster would definitely be tough.
Soon, everyone heard their leader speak in a gentle voice, saying, “From now on, we can only rest for two hours each night.”
When the rest time was reduced from four hours to two and a half hours, although the members of the Phantom Squad wore faces of exhaustion, none of them protested.
In this situation, the night watch was reduced to less than half an hour per group.
Mai Dongzi watched as her teammates fell asleep without a care in the world, completely disregarding her earlier remark about two of the mutant beast groups they encountered today not being desert creatures. She felt like shaking them all awake to analyze this issue thoroughly.
They were on an unfamiliar barren planet, and they didn’t have a clear understanding of their surroundings. If they noticed something unusual, they should carefully analyze and pay attention to it. This was the only way to avoid potential dangers that could suddenly arise.